CHRYSOSTOM . (Hom. lxxxv. 4) But as they were pressed for time, for Christ died at the ninth hour, and after that they had gone to Pilate, and taken away the body, so that the evening was now near, they lay Him in the nearest tomb: Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. A providential design, to make it certain that it was His resurrection, and not any other person’s that lay with Him.
AUGUSTINE . (Tr. cxx) As no one before or after Him was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, so in this grave was there none buried before or after Him.
THEOPHYLACT . In that it was a new sepulchre, we are given to understand, that we are all renewed by Christ’s death, and death and corruption destroyed. Mark too the exceeding poverty that He took up for our sakes. He had no house in His lifetime, and now He is laid in another’s sepulchre at His death, and His nakedness covered by Joseph. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.
AUGUSTINE . (Tr. cxx. 5) Implying that the burial was hastened, in order to finish it before the evening, when, on account of the preparation, which the Jews with us call more commonly in the Latin, Cæna pura, it was unlawful to do any such thing.
CHRYSOSTOM . (Hom. lxxxv) The sepulchre was near, that the disciples might approach it more easily, and be better witnesses of what took place there, and that even enemies might be made the witnesses of the burial, being placed there as guards, and the story of His being stolen away shewed to be false.
BEDE . Mystically, the name Joseph means, apt for the receiving of a good work; whereby we are admonished that we should make ourselves worthy of our Lord’s body, before we receive it.
THEOPHYLACT . Even now in a certain sense Christ is put to death by the avaritious, in the person of the poor man suffering famine. Be therefore a Joseph, and cover Christ’s nakedness, and, not once, but continually by contemplation, embalm Him in thy spiritual tomb, cover Him, and mix myrrh and bitter aloes; considering that bitterest sentence of all, Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. (Matt. 25:41)